In this comedic thriller, a trio of crooks relentlessly pursue a young American, played by Audrey Hepburn in gorgeous Givenchy, through Paris in an attempt to recover the fortune her dead husband stole from them. The only person she can trust is Cary Grant’s suave, mysterious stranger. Director Stanley Donen goes deliciously dark for Charade, a glittering emblem of sixties style and macabre wit.

The film is notable for its screenplay, especially the repartee between Grant and Hepburn, for having been filmed on location in Paris, for Henry Mancini's score and theme song, and for the animated titles by Maurice Binder. Charade has been referred to as the best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made.

Audrey Hepburn's line, at any moment we could be assassinated, was dubbed over to become at any moment we could be eliminated due to the recent assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Subsequent versions of the film have restored the original dialogue.

Cary Grant (59 years old at the time) was sensitive about the age difference between Audrey Hepburn (at age 34) and him, and this made him uncomfortable with the romantic interplay between them. To satisfy his concerns, the filmmakers agreed to add several lines of dialogue in which Grant's character comments on his age and Regina not Grant's character is portrayed as the pursuer.

The screenwriter, Peter Stone, and the director, Stanley Donen, have an unusual joint cameo role in the film. When Reggie goes to the U.S. Embassy to meet with Bartholomew, two men get on the elevator as she gets off. The man who says, I bluffed the old man out of the last pot with a pair of deuces, is Stone, but the voice is Donen's. Stone's voice is later used for the U.S. Marine who is guarding the Embassy at the end of the film.